Google Inc. plans to make its users the stars of advertisements—without first asking for permission.

The move encourages word-of-mouth marketing but is bound to raise privacy alarms.

The search giant on Friday alerted users in a bright blue warning across its home page that, beginning Nov. 11, it may display their names, profile photos, ratings and reviews in ads as part of what it is calling "shared endorsements."

Users age 18 or over could now see themselves pitching their favorite smartphone, say, or recommending an Italian restaurant across Google's stable of sites including in its search results. The company didn't specify whether user information would be included in ads Google places on third-party sites.

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Many of Silicon Valley's most popular sites say that such social-context ads are more useful—and maybe even less annoying—than traditional types of online advertising. But they have raised the hackles of privacy advocates, and advertisers have yet to fully buy into their effectiveness.

Even before Google's latest privacy change, when users clicked the "+1" button—Google's equivalent of Facebook Inc.s "like" button—their endorsement might have appeared in an ad.

Now it is expanding the type of content that may appear in ads—for example, ratings of songs in the Google Play store, or restaurant reviews posted to its Google+ social network.

Moreover, users who sign into third-party applications using their Google account may also see their activity used in Google ads. The company hasn't specified which apps, what actions or where such ads might appear.

"We think it's a problem," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It's a commercial endorsement without consent and that is not permissible in most states in the U.S."

In response, Google said in a statement: "The privacy and security of our users is one of our top priorities. We believe our Terms of Service updates are a positive step forward in clarifying important privacy and security details for our users, and are in full compliance with the law."

By default, Google users' information, ratings and reviews can be included in social advertisements, though Google gives users the option to opt out and to change their ratings and reviews at any time.

The potential of social ads is to replicate online what marketers have long known is effective in the real world: a word-of-mouth endorsement from a friend. In a blog post, Google gave the example of how a user of its maps service may respond more positively to a restaurant listing endorsed by a friend.

Most of the biggest players in social media have tried integrating information about friends and followers into ads, with different degrees of success.

Twitter Inc. integrates member account names (which can be pseudonyms) into ads shown to their followers; the ads say that the promoted accounts were also followed by those other users.

Facebook helped pioneer the idea in 2007 when it debuted ads that were tied to friends' actions, such as a visit to a restaurant or an endorsement of a business. Facebook added additional layers over the years, as it introduced new features such as the "Like" button.

Today, for example, when a member likes a company's Facebook page, his or her name could be used in an ad for that company seen by the member's friends.

Facebook has struggled to strike the right balance between the need to appease advertisers and the need to protect its users' privacy. In 2009, for instance, the company was pressured to shut down Beacon—a system that automatically broadcast actions, like purchases on other websites, back to Facebook—as part of a settlement for a class-action lawsuit.

Facebook also recently agreed to pay $20 million to settle a separate class action lawsuit, in which users complained that Facebook shared their activity for ads without compensation or the ability to opt out. (Members can now opt out of having their actions used with ads.)

Behind the privacy debate is another question: Do online ads with social cues work?

Today, social ads are at the center of Facebook's business, but it is starting to rely as well on other, more traditional types of online ads. Some marketers continue to question the value of social signals, such as "likes," and are still studying the correlation between social ads and purchasing behavior.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. Facebook hasn't said whether its Instagram service will use social cues in ads, which it plans to roll out in the coming months.

"In a world where we are besieged by marketing and advertising messages, one of the ways to cut through clutter is to have someone that you know and trust's opinion," says David Cohen, the chief media officer of agency UM.

The same applies online, he says, though advertisers can overdo it. "Imagine every ad we were to see had some kind of endorsement associated with it," Mr. Cohen said. "It would lose its effectiveness and start to get overbearing."

Google may have a challenge making such ads work until it gets more consumers used to the idea that they give endorsements on its services, says Bryan Wiener, the CEO of digital agency 360i. "The question in the long term is the consumer backlash," he says.

Despite Google's efforts to grow its own social network, Mr. Wiener says clicking +1s isn't yet an ingrained consumer behavior in the vein of clicking on a Facebook "like." "It is a bigger leap when you see this from the consumers' perspective," he said. "When you see it in the form of an ad, you will be more surprised."

Social ads could also go awry if sites try to make things seem like endorsements that weren't really intended that way, says Ed Keller, the CEO of market research firm Keller Fay Group.

"If it crosses the line and people start to feel like it is inauthentic, it has a chance of backfiring," he says. "There is a line that can't be crossed there."

". . . Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he 'wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out,' adding that the slogan was 'also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent.' . . . "

In my experience, be wary of anyone who insists they are "good" or "not evil."

You have to figure this would be a public relations problem for Google. At some point Google will have to profit in some way from what they gathered from their users. And Google had gathered this info to profit from it, all along. Microsoft put out television commercials knocking Google on privacy, and knew what was coming, so they got out there ahead of time to shape public opinion. Technology seems to be losing the offense, and is starting to play defense. But since Microsoft is invested in Google, maybe it's all just a diversion to take attention away from the IPhone. In the end nobody in tech, is really scoring points.

If you are concerned about your own privacy with Google or Facebook...you should be even much more concerned with Google managing 80% of the smartphones..then think about the Android OS on your smartphone. They know basically who you are, your name your last name, your email, your phone number, your real location, who are your friends and family, what product do you purchase, your business dealings, they probably could have access to passwords of you bank account...almost everything...Wait a minute....Are we back to the Stasi Police time in East Germany back then????

Expect Google to purchase the company behind the WhatsApp application, WhatsApp Inc. is an early stage technology startup and would likely be acquired by Google anytime soon ....

In response, Google said in a statement: "The privacy and security of our users is one of our top priorities. We believe our Terms of Service updates are a positive step forward in clarifying important privacy and security details for our users, and are in full compliance with the law."

I am dead serious. Has there ever been a bigger maggot than Google? Really. And this latest move is just that--the latest maggoty action by Google.

I find this invasion of privacy obscene. It is completely obscene. The founders of Google seem to know few bounds when it comes to "using" people.

In fact, I was on line last night and doing some simple searches. I went to a shopping site looked at some outdoor gear just for the fun of it. A while later I went to a completely unrelated site and suddenly I noticed that there were these ads displaying the EXACT same products I'd been looking at 30 minutes earlier. My name was not there, but the Google ad in a right hand box had all of the exact stuff I'd looked at. It appears they can access even the web sites you are clicking on right down to the product shoe size.

What I would like to know is (1) if I should just use another search engine and (2) how is it that other web sites allow Google to grab my choices? Think about it. Can they then grab your bank balance, even when using a password protected site? Yes, I think Google can do that. It just blows me away that Google is turning into a greedy group of geeks bent on acting worse than Chinese-Russian hackers

I predict that in the next 3 years that Google will be grabbed and face stiff financial penalties for using peoples' identities. This San Francisco - silicone valley crowd can rationalize anything. These are very very rich liberals who take their dogs to work, think they are above the rest of us, and have no scruples. Their motto is "do harm without getting caught".

Get there and make the change now! Unless of course, they offer to pay you... :)_______________________________________________________How your Profile name and photo may appear (including in reviews and advertising)

We want to give you – and your friends and connections – the most useful information. Recommendations from people you know can really help. So your friends, family and others may see your Profile name and photo, and content like the reviews you share or the ads you +1’d. This only happens when you take an action (things like +1’ing, commenting or following) – and the only people who see it are the people you’ve chosen to share that content with. On Google, you’re in control of what you share. This update to our Terms of Service doesn’t change in any way who you’ve shared things with in the past or your ability to control who you want to share things with in the future.

Feedback from people you know can save you time and improve results for you and your friends across all Google services, including Search, Maps, Play and in advertising. For example, your friends might see that you rated an album 4 stars on the band’s Google Play page. And the +1 you gave your favorite local bakery could be included in an ad that the bakery runs through Google. We call these recommendations shared endorsements and you can learn more about them here.

When it comes to shared endorsements in ads, you can control the use of your Profile name and photo via the Shared Endorsements setting. If you turn the setting to “off,” your Profile name and photo will not show up on that ad for your favorite bakery or any other ads. This setting only applies to use in ads, and doesn’t change whether your Profile name or photo may be used in other places such as Google Play.

If you previously told Google that you did not want your +1’s to appear in ads, then of course we’ll continue to respect that choice as a part of this updated setting. For users under 18, their actions won’t appear in shared endorsements in ads and certain other contexts.

For greater control over your experience with ads on Google, you can also use Google’s Ads Settings tool to manage ads you see. Learn more.

Quite seriously, this freaks me out. I haven't been crazy about ads that follow me all over the place, but I haven't really cared that much. But because of my eclectic searches, and my affiliation with other groups where I am not the only administrator, I am not interested in having the church FB page populated with pictures of foot fungus cream (my competitors in one business) because I was searching there last, nor do I want people to know my diseases and challenges unless I choose to tell them. No good, Google, no good.

<<In response, Google said in a statement: "The privacy and security of our users is one of our top priorities. We believe our Terms of Service updates are a positive step forward in clarifying important privacy and security details for our users, and are in full compliance with the law." >>

There are search engines you can use that protect your privacy and allow you to access Google pages via proxy. Further, you can install Ghostery and NoScript on your machine to block trackers.

Also - don't put anything on the internet that you don't want to become public knowledge or fodder. There really is no such thing as a free lunch - Google earns money using and selling what you provide them in return for 'free' use of their search engine.

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